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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUES | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON |
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PAM_START(3) Linux-PAM Manual PAM_START(3)
pam_start, pam_start_confdir - initialization of PAM transaction
#include <security/pam_appl.h>
int pam_start(const char *service_name, const char *user,
const struct pam_conv *pam_conversation,
pam_handle_t **pamh);
int pam_start_confdir(const char *service_name, const char *user,
const struct pam_conv *pam_conversation,
const char *confdir, pam_handle_t **pamh);
The pam_start function creates the PAM context and initiates the
PAM transaction. It is the first of the PAM functions that needs
to be called by an application. The transaction state is contained
entirely within the structure identified by this handle, so it is
possible to have multiple transactions in parallel. But it is not
possible to use the same handle for different transactions, a new
one is needed for every new context.
The service_name argument specifies the name of the service to
apply and will be stored as PAM_SERVICE item in the new context.
The policy for the service will be read from the file
/etc/pam.d/service_name or, if that file does not exist, from
/etc/pam.conf.
The user argument can specify the name of the target user and will
be stored as PAM_USER item. If the argument is NULL, the module
has to ask for this item if necessary.
The pam_conversation argument points to a struct pam_conv
describing the conversation function to use. An application must
provide this for direct communication between a loaded module and
the application.
Following a successful return (PAM_SUCCESS) the contents of pamh
is a handle that contains the PAM context for successive calls to
the PAM functions. In an error case is the content of pamh
undefined.
The pam_handle_t is a blind structure and the application should
not attempt to probe it directly for information. Instead the PAM
library provides the functions pam_set_item(3) and
pam_get_item(3). The PAM handle cannot be used for multiple
authentications at the same time as long as pam_end was not called
on it before.
The pam_start_confdir function behaves like the pam_start function
but it also allows setting confdir argument with a path to a
directory to override the default (/etc/pam.d) path for service
policy files. If the confdir is NULL, the function works exactly
the same as pam_start.
PAM_ABORT
General failure.
PAM_BUF_ERR
Memory buffer error.
PAM_SUCCESS
Transaction was successfully started.
PAM_SYSTEM_ERR
System error, for example a NULL pointer was submitted instead
of a pointer to data.
pam_get_data(3), pam_set_data(3), pam_end(3), pam_strerror(3)
This page is part of the linux-pam (Pluggable Authentication
Modules for Linux) project. Information about the project can be
found at ⟨http://www.linux-pam.org/⟩. If you have a bug report
for this manual page, see ⟨//www.linux-pam.org/⟩. This page was
obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://github.com/linux-pam/linux-pam.git⟩ on 2023-12-22. (At
that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in
the repository was 2023-12-18.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
[email protected]
Linux-PAM Manual 12/22/2023 PAM_START(3)
Pages that refer to this page: pam(3), pam_acct_mgmt(3), pam_authenticate(3), pam_chauthtok(3), pam_conv(3), pam_end(3), pam_fail_delay(3), pam_getenv(3), pam_getenvlist(3), pam_get_user(3), pam_putenv(3), pam_xauth_data(3), pam.conf(5)
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HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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